Bound by Prophecy (Descendants Series) (2 page)

But that wasn’t all. There was another reason to stay. Something about this girl.

The door closed. The officer’s footfalls moved past the shed.

He was satisfied he’d cleared the area.

The girl waited several minutes, and then moved across the shed to peek out a slit in the boarded window above me. Her white tennis shoes came to a rest just beside my feet. The window covering shifted, and I could see her face more clearly. Not a girl exactly, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. A shapeless jacket hung open over her faded tee shirt. Her jeans were worn, shoes scuffed.

“I think they’re gone,” she whispered to the window opening.

It struck me I was rather far behind with what was happening and exactly who this was. She didn’t appear to be a criminal, but she
had
slapped me pretty good.

“Why are the police looking for you?” I asked.

She fell into a squat beside me. “Shhhh! What is wrong with you?”

“I thought they were gone?”

She shook her head, brushed a caramel lock from her face.

“So, why are the cops after you?” I repeated in a softer voice.

She glanced behind her, as if we weren’t alone in the empty shed, and then back before answering. “They aren’t.” She grimaced, not wanting to admit the rest. “I couldn’t figure out how you got in, so I pried the lock.” Her face flushed the tiniest bit. “It set off the alarm.”

That explained the buzzing. And then the “pried” registered. “The screwdriver?”

She shrugged. “You work with what you’ve got.”

“And you were following me.”

Her eyes narrowed further. “I know you have my sister. I saw you take her.”

I shifted, hoping my sway would work when she decided to skewer me with a two-dollar screwdriver. And then a thought seized me, the notion that this might not be one of Morgan’s plans, that she might be telling the truth, and I had to play it as such, even on the slightest chance.

“You don’t understand,” I said, working to keep my tone level through the pain radiating from my shoulder. “She isn’t safe without me.”

Her hand twitched. “You’re some kind of psychopath, then.” Her frown tightened. “Do you even know what you’ve done with her?”

I sighed. “She hasn’t been harmed. I swear it.”

“Prove it. Take me to her.”

“I can’t. It’s the only way she’s safe.”

“Do it, or I stab you right now and call those policemen back here.”

A rusty pair of shears was suddenly inches from my throat, pulled from beside the hundred-and-ten-pound girl threatening my life.

I wasn’t afraid of her, exactly. But what if she was telling the truth? What if this was Brianna’s sister?

“Fine,” I said. “But you have to prove something to me first.”

The shears moved forward, poking into the tender skin above my jugular.

“How do I know you are really her sister?”

In a flash of anger, she brought the rusty tool up and knocked a chunk of the covering loose from the window.

Light rushed in and I blinked hard against it. When I focused finally on her face, I got the first good look at her since she’d slammed open the warehouse door.

It was Brianna, but suddenly filled with fury and life. This version wasn’t as thin or frail; those few pounds changed her face slightly, gave her fuller lips and healthy, rosy cheeks, but they were the same.

And those eyes. Brianna’s impossibly wide, sea-glass green eyes that seemed continuously jumping between wonder and terror were narrowed on me here, at once ice and fire.

I leaned closer, my whisper of disbelief cut short by shooting pain.

I gasped, grabbing my shoulder, and then got my voice back. “Why did you drop me?”

Her mouth twisted with what might have been humor. One shoulder lifted. “I thought you’d be easier to handle this way.”

I stared at her open-mouthed. This was not my Brianna.

Chapter Two

Deception

I was lying to her.

This poor girl was clearly Brianna’s sister, and I couldn’t tell her the truth. There was no way I could reunite them.

It wasn’t safe.

“Emily,” I said, coming to a standstill despite the insistent tugging on my arm. “Where are you dragging me?”

Her brows dropped, unbelievably, lower. After a long, uncomfortably silent wait in the shed, she’d decided the policemen were no longer a threat and gone ahead with her mission, pulling me up from the floor to follow her through the maze of containers and outbuildings surrounding the warehouse. Her mood had decidedly not improved after my capture.

“I have to get my bag,” she explained, “and I can’t very well trust you not to run off, now can I?”

There was no accounting for the way her anger consistently caused the corner of my mouth to twitch, but I bit down against it. Her tone made everything she hadn’t said perfectly clear. I was a psychopathic kidnapper. No two ways about it.

She pulled forward again, and then, two steps later, came to an abrupt halt. I started to question the pause when she spun on me, her chest heaving long, angry breaths.

When she at last spoke, she punctuated each word. “How. Did. You. Know. My. Name?”

My lips pursed. I knew better than to answer.

I hadn’t actually known the name was hers. It had only been whispered in sleep, loosed in restless sobbing. I had assumed the name belonged to the girl’s mother. But I’d not known she had a twin. I hadn’t understood.

She stared fire at me.

“Your sister,” I finally answered. “Brianna.”

Her face twisted at the words, and I felt a sudden stab of guilt. I was protecting her, I reminded myself. Protecting us all. This was the only way.

And then she hauled off and punched me.

It might not have hurt if I wasn’t sporting a broken shoulder. I automatically gripped my arm at the elbow to support the injury, and cursed. For one brief instant, I considered leaving her. Touching her face, dropping her into a coma, and walking away.

But I couldn’t. Morgan would find her. Use her.

We stared at each other for a long moment, both of us knowing there was no other way.

And then she grabbed my arm again, yanking even harder as she tugged me behind her.

We passed the side entrance I’d used when spying on Morgan.
Before I got caught
, I thought bitterly, and it steeled my resolve. I had to help this girl. If for no other reason, Morgan could use her against Brianna.

Emily let go of my arm as we came to a pair of trash dumpsters, and slipped into the narrow space between the two. The smell was rancid, as if somehow this empty warehouse churned out fish guts instead of lawn furniture. And then I remembered even the furniture hadn’t been produced here in years. The metal scraps that littered the yard were aged, rusting.

So Morgan’s goons were using these buildings for something. Something that reeked of death. My eyes narrowed on the dumpster’s lid.

“Are you having an episode or something?” Emily snapped as she reappeared inches from me. “Is this part of your ‘condition’?”

I didn’t open the lid, which was probably a good thing, since this angry young woman would no doubt think I was responsible for whatever lay inside.

“You have your bag,” I said levelly. “What now?”

She shrugged the duffle bag further up her shoulder. Concentrated for a moment. Screwed up her mouth. “I don’t suppose you have a car or something nearby?”

“No, I don’t suppose I do.”

Her shoulder rose and fell in a sigh. “Well, then I guess we walk back.”

She turned to go and I reached up to stop her. The instant my hand touched her left shoulder, the bag dropped from her right and she spun to strike me.

“Whoa,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Easy.”

Her jaw tightened. “Don’t touch me.”

I resisted the urge to bring up the dozen or so times she’d had a hold of me since we’d met. “Fine,” I answered. I waited a moment for her to calm. “What do you mean ‘back?’”

Her face relaxed to confusion. “Back to the house where I found you.” She pointed absently toward the east. “My car is parked in an alley two blocks down.”

I automatically stepped forward to grasp her arms, to shake her, and had to restrain myself. “No. You can’t go back there. You can never go back there.”

She opened her mouth, the words ‘my car’ silently forming through her shock at my vehemence.

“Forget the car. It’s lost to you.” I shook my head, furious. “Morgan’s probably already found it. His minions have probably sniffed out every clue in it. The registration, it’ll have your address, your name. They’ll know. They’ve got us now.”

“Seriously,” Emily said, “do we need to get your medication or something?”

I threw my hands up, and then stopped short when the pain cut through my shoulder anew. “Aaaaahhhh!”

Emily leaned back, suddenly leery instead of determined.

“I am not mentally ill,” I said in as calm and even a tone as I could manage. “That…
man
you saw earlier, the one who chained me by the ankles”—I waited until her expression indicated she was remembering the image—“he is the insane one.”

I was quiet while she let it sink in. Slowly, she began to nod. “Yes, that makes sense.”

I let out a long breath, grateful I was finally getting through.

“So, you’re both insane,” she decided. “Did you meet in the nuthouse or is there like a club or something?”

An exasperated growl escaped me. “I’m not insane!”

A petite hand came to rest on her hip as she leaned forward again. “Oh, really? Then, why, pray tell, did you kidnap my sister?”

My palm slapped against my face and I took two long breaths before opening my eyes to peer through the fingers at her.

She waited.

I dropped my hand in defeat. “Circumstance, Emily. Circumstance.”

“I don’t think I believe you,” she said, only a hint of a tremor in her voice. “I can’t think of any circumstance that would call for you stealing Brianna.”

“And I can’t think of any circumstance that would call for a girl with a screwdriver to drop me from a chain to break my shoulder against a concrete floor and drag me along as if I’m some kind of hostage. But here we are.” I glanced up and down the space between the buildings. “Now let’s get moving before someone finds us.”

She didn’t speak for a blissful five minutes or so, merely walking behind me. I wasn’t certain whether she’d been thinking and finally come to a decision or had just realized she’d begun to follow instead of lead when her diligent stride turned into a kind of hopping jog to overtake mine.

“Hey!” she spat when she appeared beside me. She reached out to grab my arm again, but stopped just short, narrowed her eyes, and then drew her hand to her side where it fisted against her leg. I pulled back a smile. So that was it, then. She wasn’t about to let me call her on anything. Not this psycho. “Where, exactly, are we going?” she asked.

I sighed. “To find your sister.”

I could see the argument forming, wanting to tear out of her, but she didn’t seem entirely sure what to do.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

She swallowed. Glanced forward, then back at me. When she spoke, it was almost a whisper. “Where is she?”

I turned my eyes ahead, toward the gates that led from the factory grounds. “Safe. That’s all that matters for now.”

It wasn’t answer enough, but Emily was clearly too tired for quarreling. There was a darkness under her eyes and I wondered if she’d slept at all since I’d taken Brianna. And then I corrected myself, because I’d not
taken
Brianna. I’d
saved
her.

We reached the chain link fence enclosing the property and I pulled a loose section up at the base for Emily to crawl through. She eyed me suspiciously, but went under. Climbing through myself proved to be a challenge with an injured shoulder, yet I received no help from her. Or pity.

I made it, though the fence dropped with a metallic clang behind me, snapping down on my ankle. I gritted my teeth against the pain in my shoulder and yanked my foot free, but not before ripping the hem of my jeans. I looked at Emily, arms crossed as she glared down at me, and tried once more to reach her, to sway her to help me up.

“Are you coming, or what?” she snapped.

With a resigned sigh, and one good arm, I pushed to my feet.

“You sigh a lot,” she said.

“I never used to,” I muttered as I brushed asphalt off my pant leg. My shoulder hurt and the whole situation was making my nerves raw. My gaze met hers. “You narrow your eyes a lot.”

She scowled. “Well, I only narrow my eyes at people who’ve kidnapped my sister.”

I returned the frown. “And I only sigh when people wrongly accuse me of kidnapping their sister.” I glanced down the street. “Let’s go. I don’t like the looks of that car.”